“We had a better pace for sure. After the 30.6 I came into the pit because I was not understanding it so much but we could take a very good rhythm better than we could all weekend in Valencia. I’m happy and very pleased. We are growing and we touched what we are asking for and that’s important.”

Does he feel he is now closer to a solid working base set-up than before? “When I was saying that I was testing a lot of things this was not a criticism but to say it was a hard job.

“I was super-happy that KTM were bringing a lot of things in these three years to be better otherwise we would not be here where we are at the moment.

“So, for sure now everything is going now in slow-motion compared to the beginning and the very new and very big parts [fall] to one guy in the factory who is Dani Pedrosa and when we get it on the track then it is better.

“This is different to the past. We had Mika [Kallio], for sure, but we had no time and we had to bring it straight into the racing. We were always too fast! Now we are in a different story.”